Clean Energy News

Wind is now the top renewable source of electricity generation in the country, a position previously held by hydroelectricity.

Annual wind generation totaled 300 million megawatthours (MWh) in 2019, exceeding hydroelectric generation by 26 million MWh. Wind generation has increased steadily during the past decade, in part, because the Production Tax Credit (PTC), which drove wind capacity additions, was extended. Annual hydroelectric generation has fluctuated between 250 million MWh and 320 million MWh in the past decade, reflecting a stable capacity base and variable annual precipitation.

It’s difficult to recycle a gigantic wind turbine. The blades are built to withstand extreme weather, from scorching desert heat to hurricane-like winds, and that means their life almost always ends in a landfill. In Europe alone, about 3,800 blades will be removed every year through at least 2022, according to BloombergNEF, as the oldest turbines reach retirement age.

A Danish startup aims to turn old turbines into a material that can address a different environmental threat: noise pollution.

The battery backup Elon Musk built has saved South Australia tens of millions of dollars.

Musk’s Australian solar and wind farm powers rural South Australia, with a population density between Wyoming and Alaska.

South Australia experienced a near total blackout in 2016, after 80,000 lightning strikes and at least two tornadoes.

The push for renewable energy was blamed for the extent of the blackouts. As the head of batteries at Tesla, Musk said he was sure the company could do better, and he jumped in to promise his team would.

The TransAlta coal plant in Centralia will fully close down by 2025, as part of an agreement that will see $55 million invested to help the community prepare for the transition.

The Centralia agreement is an example of an unusually well-funded, long-planned transition. Unlike many coal plant closures today, it was forged not because the company was going out of business but as a political deal to address climate change.

The TransAlta coal plant’s closure will be a win for environmentalists and left-leaning lawmakers who want to fight climate change. The town, however, will lose a significant taxpayer. And nearly 200 people will lose their jobs.

Local officials say they are excited about new wind and solar projects backed by TransAlta and others, which have sprung up independently of the agreement, but those will create a fraction of the jobs and tax base that the coal plant has historically provided. And attempts to bring new businesses to the area have so far been disappointing.

Consolidated Edison and National Grid are experimenting with energy storage in New York.

ConEd is in the middle of several major projects to advance the state’s distributed grid, while working to add 300 MW of energy storage by 2023.

Storage is essential to New York’s long-term climate goals, ConEd REV Demonstration specialist Alison Kling said. It can be used as grid support, including for particular feeders, real power, reactive power, or as part of broader non-wires alternative goals, but it will also be important in the long-term as the state continues to add more renewable energy onto its grid.

A U.S. private equity firm, Hull Street Energy, has sealed a deal to buy a 255-MW portfolio of 31 hydroelectric facilities from a joint venture between Enel Green Power North America and GE Energy Financial Services.

Researchers from the University of California, Davis explain in a recent paper, published in the journal ACS Photonics, that if you want to create a solar panel that generates electricity at night, you have to create one that operates the exact opposite way solar panels work during the day.

It’s referred to as the “anti-solar panel.”

Solar panels are cold compared to the Sun, so they absorb the Sun’s light and turn it into energy. Space is very cold, so if you point a panel on Earth that is comparatively warm toward it, it will radiate heat as invisible infrared light. This allows you to generate electricity by capturing that power. The paper claims such a device could generate about a quarter of the electricity at night that a normal solar panel generates during the day.

Hydrogen could be a feasible alternative to fossil fuels because of its affordability and environmental friendliness. It is found throughout the environment, but producing it involves efficiently separating it from other compounds.

There are currently a number of ways this can be done, but methods can be slow and expensive. A team of scientists believes that hydrogen fuel could be generated “on-demand” because of a separation process structured around bismuth, a chemical element.

William Westmoreland, the new executive director of the Pacific Northwest Center of Excellence for Clean Energy, brings more than 15 years of experience in program development, system integration, and community engagement.

William plans to increase awareness of the Center, update programs, and continue building partnerships that promote learning and working opportunities for our communities.